Truth or Myth: Human Time Capsule

August 25, 2012

The human time capsule – science fiction plot or true story? Science and technology has advanced in leaps and bounds in the past decades, but there have yet to be direct answers about body preservation, time travel and human time capsule. A lot of movies have already portrayed human time capsules – which involves preserving a living human inside a time capsule that will be opened after a span of time. Is there truth behind such an idea or is it just a myth?

Movie characters who choose to preserve themselves through time capsules usually do so for the purpose of preserving their youth, knowledge, capability, and so on. One movie also used a human time capsule to let a group of people sleep for years while looking for another planet that can support life. But would it really be possible for man to sleep his way through an entire era? We experience grogginess and headaches just by sleeping over 12 hours!

If you search the web and look for time capsules, it will provide you with articles about time capsules for things. It is where you put things like toys, pictures or memorabilia into a glass or tin cylinder, put in underground and then wait for a few years or for the next generation to open it. But no matter how much you search about human time capsules, no clear or reliable answers crop up.

What if it’s all true? It must consider the person who will undergo this experiment – physically, mentally and emotionally. First to consider is the physical aspect of the person, if he could meet the physical needs of a human body like food, hygiene, exercise, and so on. Second, if he could mentally cope with the new things in the environment after such a long time of sleep. Third, if he’s emotionally ready to face the consequence of his decision once he gets out of the time capsule. He may lose one of his family members, or worse, all his loved ones may be dead when he wakes up. Preserving our body and mind for the future would certainly be a great leap for humanity, but you’ll miss a lot while sleeping and you won’t even be sure if you’ll wake up again (creepy thought).

Space travel and explorations on the moon used to be just a myth.

Astronauts are said to travel in time capsules, but there’s no direct claim that this is true. For now, it can only be said that time capsules are a myth. Take note however, that some of the past generations’ myths have become a reality today — we only have to look at tiny computers, sky-high structures, and space travel to realize that this is true. With human time capsules, I guess we’ll have to just wait and see.